Remembrance
Created | Updated Nov 11, 2014
REMEMBRANCE
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember.
You who drowned in shell-holes full of mud,
or gasped as every breath corrupted lungs
with poison gas, never lived to know
the payment of your youth and blood
bought little more than twenty years of peace.
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember
you who sweltered in the desert heat
in trucks that trundled over hidden bombs.
While you who lived with shattered limbs
now hear that planes with loads of men and tanks
may soon be landing on the soil you left.
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember
and beseech whatever gods we care to name
to spare the generations still unthought
from the legacy of grief and pain
of wars begun in error but bravely fought.
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember.
You who drowned in shell-holes full of mud,
or gasped as every breath corrupted lungs
with poison gas, never lived to know
the payment of your youth and blood
bought little more than twenty years of peace.
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember
you who sweltered in the desert heat
in trucks that trundled over hidden bombs.
While you who lived with shattered limbs
now hear that planes with loads of men and tanks
may soon be landing on the soil you left.
In the solemn silence of November
we plant our poppies and remember
and beseech whatever gods we care to name
to spare the generations still unthought
from the legacy of grief and pain
of wars begun in error but bravely fought.
